


Going Ghost, Reversing Time, and Other Extreme Sports

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [16]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Kravitz can go full ghost, M/M, The Raven Queen can manipulate time, reaper powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 19:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20587742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: The front door slammed open, crashing into the wall that held it, and with a burst of celestial energy at his back, Kravitz shifted human and lurched forward just in time to catch Taako falling over the threshold.“Wha thefuck,” Taako groaned, words slurring. “What the fuuuuuuck was’at? Am I drunk? Did time jus move?”





	Going Ghost, Reversing Time, and Other Extreme Sports

**Author's Note:**

> One of those prompt lists is floating around tumblr again. Prompt: "Don't move, it'll be okay," Taakitz

Kravitz stumbled into the kitchen, tripping over the jagged edges of his slice as he made his way home half-formed and barely corporeal. It had been the world’s longest day. The pocket-watch Taako made him carry— so he wouldn’t stay out for weeks without end, at least without calling once in a while— was configured to keep time on the material plane even when Kravitz resided elsewhere. Time could get a little strange in the astral plane. Kravitz had floated in the presence of the Raven Queen, curled in her midst for healing, barely a specter and a ball of light, and he’d watched the pocket watch spin and spin. As his anxiety grew the watch stopped, and then slowly began to inch backwards. He was comforted by the flapping of wings.

Taako was out on a boys’ weekend, so Kravitz wasn’t terribly concerned. Still, he’d like to be home already when Taako arrived; didn’t want to waste any time falling into him.

This was why, as soon as he’d gathered the energy to form arms and legs, present while they may not be actually useful or tangible, he cut a rift and wandered through, feeling the heat of his Queen’s embrace melt from him as he went, falling away like wisps off of liquid nitrogen.

The house was empty as he came to it, giving Kravitz a moment to test himself. He was translucent and blurred around the edges. He saw without eyes and when he caught his own reflection, a ambiguous shadowy man stared back.

_Should have stayed longer, then_, he mused, but Fate was acting on his nerves. Whatever force drew him home had him get there mere minutes before Taako came crashing through the front door.

Literally crashing. The heavy wood door slammed back against the wall that held it, and Taako collapsed over the threshold in a misshapen pile of singed wizards robes and scarves, his hat still firmly on his head, smushed against the floor.

Taako groaned.

Kravitz rushed to be with him, calling out as he went, but his voice was not his own. It came out as a ghastly wail.

Fuck.

Taako picked his head up off the floor to squint at him— one black eye shut firmly— and flinched back at the sight.

He froze, and Taako froze, until his whip-smart brain started to thread together the pieces and recognition melted over his face.

“Hey Skeletor,” he croaked, and then groaned again, dropping his head back onto the floor with a thump that could not have been purposeful or comfortable. A whimper fell out of his mouth.

Kravitz reached for him, wanting to roll him and assess the damage, or at least soothe him, but when he reached out his hands went straight into his body instead, disappearing up to the wrist. Taako gasped, flinched away from him as much as his exhausted body would allow, and Kravitz leapt back, accidentally levitating back ten feet, through the couch, and halfway into the coffee table.

He wasn’t meant to be corporeal just yet.

“Leave cha’boy here a minute, I’m all good. Just need a nap.”

Kravitz tried to say, “you need help,” but another ghostly scream flew out of him instead. He grew frustrated, reached up to tug at hair he didn’t even have. His form vibrated with agitation, and as it reached crescendo and he felt like bursting, a picture frame fell off the wall. It landed with a tell-tale crack. Taako didn’t look up to investigate.

He did manage to roll himself over, but the cry that fell from him with the movement was both involuntary and anguished. Kravitz felt nauseous without a stomach to empty. He floated closer.

There were two concerning pools of blood seeping through his clothes, one on his bicep and one on his lower abdomen, somewhere near his hip. Kravitz couldn’t remember elven anatomy well enough to know where the major arteries were, whether or not that was bad or Really Bad. He didn’t see any sigils floating around, so he knew it wasn’t anything fatal, but that hardly put him at ease about the situation.

“Okay,” he murmured to himself, and his words evaporated into frost as they left him, chilling the air further. Fuck. “Hold on, **don’t move, it’ll be okay.”**Nothing but mist.

He went to the kitchen, for a rag and some gauze and a cup of water. He got it together just long enough to hold the cup— something he nearly cried with relief over— but holding it with the weight of the water overcame him. His hand blipped away, losing form, and the cup crashed to the ground. It landed with a splash but without breaking, but Kravitz’s resolve abandoned him. He felt his patience snap, feeling entirely like one of Lup’s fire spells bursting from her in a fit of rage against a particularly deserving bounty, and the cup on the floor shattered.

He blinked, and he was back in the astral plane, two large eyes unseeable but obviously watching. His Queen coaxed him without words, drawing him back together, and chided him with a breeze that suggested there would be Words about patience and looking after himself to follow. Somehow, somehow the pocket watch was still present on him, and he watched with an anxiety that the Raven Queen brushed against and soothed away, as the hands very slowly crept backwards. A few seconds. A few minutes.

“**_Try again_**,” she said, and it sounded teasing, and Kravitz was back in his living room as if he had never walked away.

The front door slammed open, crashing into the wall that held it, and with a burst of celestial energy at his back, Kravitz shifted human and lurched forward just in time to catch Taako falling over the threshold.

“Wha thefuck,” Taako groaned, words slurring. “What the fuuuuuuck was’at? Am I drunk? Did time jus move?”

Taako tried to walk, and his legs collapsed under him. Kravitz planted his feet and hefted the deadweight back up, until he could get his arms around him firmly enough to lift him and carry him down the hall.

It was awkward work carrying the elf, who was all gangly limbs and bulky robes, like a small child on his hip. He got them to the bedroom through, and shoved the unmade duvet layer away with his foot to avoid blood before laying Taako down as gently as he could. Taako winced anyways, hissing in a pained breath between his teeth.

His fingers, still clumsy and a bit numb, a favor from his Queen more than a real conscious effort, made slow work of Taako’s shirt buttons. He peeled the fabric back, accidentally pulling on one wound, and Taako shoved his hands away with a swallowed yelp. He tried to curl in on himself, hurt himself worse, and collapsed back with a stuttered breath.

“Hold still,” Kravitz said, grateful for audible language. “What happened? Where the hell was Merle for all this?”

“Parlay.” Taako bit the words out as if he was trying very hard to keep them from slicing his tongue. “He and Dav, I’m not about to try and interrupt that shit.”

“But what happened?” The cut was bloody but not terribly deep. It wasn’t leaking anything Kravitz figured he ought to be concerned of, nor was it spitting blood rhythmically the way a arterial cut would be. He let himself relax, felt the brush of spectral wings against his cheek, and shrugged them off.

Taako pushed his hat back with his good arm and grinned at Kravitz in a way that suggested trouble. Nothing but mischief and the cat that got the cream.

“Bar fight,” he said, laugh lines wrinkling the not swollen eye as he grinned. “You should see the other thug, he doesn’t look nearly this pretty.”

Kravitz considered his options, then. With a big enough favor, Kravitz could wrestle up the bardic magic for a healing spell. In a way his Queen also served as his patron some of the times. But he’d asked enough favors tonight. If he went back again, she’d surely laugh at him.

He wanted to laugh, himself. Drop his forehead to the bed he was kneeling next to and just lose it, let all the stress just fall out of him.

But no, he wanted to keep up the game that Taako was in trouble at least a little bit longer. So instead, he stood and looked down at him blankly, playing at unamusement.

“Barry knows some healing magic, right?” He asked, and Taako’s eyes went wide.

“Wait—“

Lup’s voice crackled through the stone, saying, “Ya got Lup here, throw me a bone,” before a burst of laughter at her own joke.

“Oh shoot, I must have dialed the wrong number,” Kravitz said, and Taako gaped up at him.

“You son of a bitch.”

“I’m trying to call Barry and ask him if he’ll come over here and heal my husband for me,” Kravitz said. “Would you mind pass along the message?”

“I thought the boys were just playing poker this weekend?”

Kravitz nodded sagely, while Taako glowered at him. “So did I.”

In the seconds between the line going dead and the sound of Lup cutting a rift straight into their living room, Taako glared at Kravitz and said, “You son of a bitch. I’m injured, and you rat me out to my own sister. I thought you loved me.”

There was humor playing at his lips, and Kravitz smiled back down at him. “Of course, love,” he said. He stooped down and kissed Taako on the forehead, pushing his hat off and away to do so. Taako hissed at him, playfully, like a cat.

Kravitz felt his energy waiver and drain, and just like that he was spectral again. Just in time for Lup to slam through their bedroom door, Barry following a little more calmly after her.

“You absolute idiot!” she roared. “You know you can, like, actually die these days, right?”

“As if any of you undead fuckers would let that happen,” Taako rasped back.

Kravitz chuckled, more in spirit than physical action. Barry sat on the edge of Taako’s bed and looked him over.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Lup asked, whirling on Kravitz. He froze. “Should you even be on this plane right now? Is there a single ounce of self-preservation in this family?”

She tried to swat at him, but her hand went straight through him. Everything back as it should be, or at least on its way back to safety, Kravitz let all his tension fall away from him. He let it go and laughed, almost hysterically. The light flickered above them.

“Rave party,” Taako said, dancing a bit and wincing again.

“Don’t move, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Barry smacked him on the side of the head, which was met with much protest and complaint (“I’m injured, Barold!”).


End file.
